YellowBear

Last week I set a personal best time for my commute both to and from the office.

Commuting by bike is great. Pump you up in the morning, wind down at night – lower your carbon foot print, put your metal down – what you are made of..

Now for me, bike commuting is first and foremost a way to burn calories while doing the 9-5 grind. A way to get miles in. Most days, I am just trying to get in and out without drama – but – I almost always have the garmin mounted to whatever I am riding and I am keeping track of things with ascent.

The last few rides have been on my Eddy Merckx Corsa Extra – You may have seen pictures in prior posts. This is a twenty year old steel bike. A classic. Something people in the know lust over. A gem.

I have commuted on my Cross bike, with fenders and racks, on my Full Carbon 1XM (also Merckx) and lately, the Corsa Extra. In two days I will mark my one year anniversary of this new job, and new commute.

I am not sure where the motivation or fitness is coming from. But it is here. And I am enjoying every minute of it.

Tonight I took back nearly a minute on my prior impossible time and I am still not leaving work thinking “tonight I break the record”

There is nothing quite like the feeling of your heart pounding, legs pumping, grinding up the hill (yeah, all up hill on the way home) and feeling like you own it.

Here is to younger next year and Cycling Past 50.

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Quick write up on the 400R with a link to a short demo movie..

I have my wife to thank for finding DiNotte when she set me up with the forward light for commuting last winter.

Since running the 400R I have pointed many people to the company. We have people roll down windows at stop lights and ask us where we got them…

I will never ride without mine.

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When I can, I really try to ride to work. Today is Thursday and I have not been on the bike since a short recovery ride last Sunday after the RWRCR. Various things got in the way, like driving to CT to take my dad to the hospital etc..

Today however was a great day to ride to work. Cool and clear.

I wanted to get back on the Corsa Extra – after some tweaks here and there and also after dropping in the new Mavic wheels that Jack was able to score for me. I put a new set of Conti 4000′s on them to celebrate.

Without going for it, as a direct goal, I was able to set a record time on the ride in this morning. Now, the ride into work is pretty much all down hill. A few rollers, nothing special. I was feeling strong and it showed. On the way back out of work, again without a specific goal, I absolutely destroyed my best time to date. A great result would be to take back a minute on a fifteen mile ride. Tonight I took back over three. And this on a fifteen year old classic steel bike with an early eight speed groupo.

Success is infectious. Get some, and you want to go looking for more – Looking forward to a good hard ride Saturday morning. Ring me up if you are around.

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Rangeley > Woburn > Rangeley Century Ride

Year two of this great ride is behind us. We were lucky to have some great company this year that made for a great ride and a fantastic weekend. The weather was nearly perfect – cool starting out, almost chilly (well, ok, yes – it was chilly and you were right – arm warmers were prudent) The temperature was between 64-68 most of the day. We had a brisk headwind most of the way out but nothing epic and provided a significant lift on the way back.

(Warning – Clicking into the images will load LARGE files – not a problem.. but if you are on a slow connection…..)

The ride is relatively flat. There are a few hills but no heart stoppers. The profile;

The map of the route is pure out and back. The plan is a simple one – Ride out until your mile measurement device of choice reads 50, add a little for margin of error, then make a 180 and head for home.

My measurement device of choice is the garmin 705 and when plugged into Ascent, I get the great maps and profiles shown. It was interesting that all 5 devices had a milage reading that was within .9 miles at the end of the day.

A couple of nice features of the ride are the views. Early on, around mile twenty-two we are welcomed by pleasant vistas in the town of Eustis. Across the back waters of Flagstaff lake jut the mountains of the Bigilow range.

Not much further on, we are reminded just where we are going…

We stopped at a roadside picnic area just before the hills around the chain of ponds .. We could see the progress on the Kibby mountain wind project. I liked how it looks, towers of power from the same wind we were fighting up the road.

After a few hills around the Chain of Ponds.. We were at the boarder before we knew it. Nearly half way there. The Canadian customs official was very pleasant and was sure to stamp our passports as a souvenir. Not far from customs we stopped for a group photo -

It was only a few miles up the road to Woburn – and the rather anti-climatic turn around for home. It was good to have the wind at our backs and we made great time. The views from Chain of Ponds was much better in this direction.

Looking out at this I cant help but think of Arnold and his journey to Quebec. His story is an interesting one and something I keep in mind as I travel this section of the route. We ride the Arnold trail from Stratton to Woburn, some forty miles during this trip.

We rode like the wind on the run back, with food and drink calling us on, the miles flew by and there was little late day dragging to be found. Just outside of town we all hit the 100 mile mark and before you knew it we were lakeside once more.

Only one thing left to do now -

An important aspect of any big ride is recovery beverages. Something designed to restore your aching muscles and put you in the proper frame of mind – to go out and do it all over again…

Hope to see you next year -

Michael and Sally

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I now have five of them -
A Professional, A Corsa, a Corsa Extra, an MX Leader and my main ride, the 1XM

The last couple of evenings I scavenged most of the parts off my Roberts MAX (which needed to be stripped anyway) and moved them over to my recently acquired Corsa Extra-

And the results of the first rough fit out -

It’s all eight speed Dura-Ace 7400 with the exception of the campy seat post and the wheel set. I have some MA40′s for wheels and just need to swap rear hubs – Not that concerned with the seat post.

The pedals will get keo’s when I am ready to actually ride it. The only other component swap I would like would be wider bars. I need to shorten up the SIS cable housing a bit, and replace the front break housing , adjust the dangle of the bars and hight of the brifters – add some fresh tape and…. Done.. White on the tape? I hate to do it – never stays white long.. but what else would you do?

Next up is the NOS White Corsa – Only problem with that one is I am out of components – I was thinking of just a stock 105 group (new) for that..

EDIT TO ADD:

Found these, thought I would share -

Checkout the excellent Tears for Gears and The Serial number List at Cadre.org

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So, with many people expressing interest – I thought I would, somewhat jokingly, formalize the process.

Rangeley to Woburn and back. 100 miles even – Mostly flat.

Plan is to Arrive at the boathouse on Friday August 6. Ride out and back on the 7th and have a big feed that night, and drive home on Sunday.
Rain dates (called by Thursday prior) push it out by a week, and should need be, another..

If you don’t know, or have not been there, we have some humble accommodations. We can sleep quite a few and camping on the lawn is always and option. As long as you don’t mind the night time call of loons over the waves lapping on the shore of the lake… We are right on the lake in Downtown Rangeley.

This is a no-drop ride. NOT a hammer fest. Feel like getting hammered? Then you are welcome to join me on the North Yarmouth > Rangeley ride.
This IS an outstanding first century for the casual rider. You should be able to handle 6 hours in the saddle to consider riding it… but there are no killer hills and the traffic is light, and for most of the way, the pavement is perfect with wide shoulders. The ride will not split into A and B groups. We all start together and we all finish together. You are expected to have your act together and a mechanically sound ride, be able to support yourself if you flat etc.. There are a couple of stores along the way but there are vast sections with nothing but wilderness – which makes this the ride it is – Be able to carry water and food for 40 miles..

EDIT > Oh, and a passport is helpful

If you know me, you know how to reach me – If you don’t and found this blog post via some other means, but want to do some really cool riding along the Maine / Canada boarder this summer, then you can find me via comments.

For photo’s and more from last year visit last year’s write up.

Many more that a dozen and I will call it closed – That just gets to be a lot of people. I am not worried though – Chances are it will just be me and my best bud again this year, which is fine by me..

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It seems that June and August are when we seem to spend every weekend ‘upta camp’. Last weekend was no exception. We had a great couple of days riding. We brought the kayaks but never took them off the car.
We rode out to Eustis on Saturday with a friend of ours who day tripped up to see us, and on Sunday we noodled around the Mingo loop, and walked about etc.

If I had to post one picture to sum it up,

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It has been just over a week now since I flailed on the killer century. I was wasted and near full on heat stroke at mile ninety. It was NOT like being licked by kittens.

So, yes – I was not in the same shape I was last year when I did it – both in terms of miles on the bike and weight on the bod (perhaps connected? hmm…) BUT… I was not in that bad of shape either. My legs are toned and fit and my CV system is up to the task. What got me was a hundred hard miles in the hot sun. It was the hottest day of the year, it was windy and I did not have nearly enough fluids and fuel in me for such a task. One more factor was rest – I could have slept better the night before.

I have 200 miles in this week – not bad. My ass is growing back the skin I chafed off.. and my legs feel great thus proving…

That which does not kill me makes me stronger

Bring it.

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Kancamagus -third and final Sagamore of the Panacook Confederacy of Native American tribes. Nephew of Wonalancet and grandson of Passaconaway, Kancamagus ruled what is now southern New Hampshire. Known as The Fearless One.

Well, thats the back story to the name -

Saturday the 24th of April was our annual trip up Kancamagus Highway. The weather was absolutely perfect with light winds, sunny skies and mild temperatures.

We started the ride from the same place as last year – a picnic area on the pasaconaway road. By the time we were rolling it was around 10:30 and there was no need for warmers – It was only minutes down the road that we passed the first of many cyclists we would see this day.
It is always interesting to me on starting a long ride – I know I am going to be in the saddle for five hours – I know I am going to go up and over a lot of climbs, but somehow it all seems a little unreal to me at the outset – like I am only pretending.

The route ran from the car up to the summit then back down the hill then left onto Bear Notch, over that hill and down into Bartlett, down 302 to West-Side Road – all the way back to the Passaconaway road and up to parking.

Sally had a great run – Stronger than the year before even with fewer training miles in prior.

Russ was finally able to join us on this classic ride and also had a great run

The descent was clean and dry – rarely did the speed drop much below forty. The sight lines and road quality was such that you never needed to touch your breaks. Simply sitting up or crouching down was the only speed control used

Identical to last year, we made great time back to Bear Notch and stopped at the same initial rise in the road to remove windbreaks and arm warmers used for the descent.

We were pleased to find that the road was still gated closed as this meant no traffic worries and makes it one of the most looked forward to rides of the year.

Just before the summit there is a little pull out where we stopped for a re-fuel and some snaps..

The descent down the north side of the notch was crazy in that there were many blowdowns and debris blocking the road at various points. Many hazards that you did NOT want to hit at forty miles per-hour.

There was time for one more vista shot though – with the ‘rock pile’ in the background still snow covered

From there it was the run down the west side – a great day, a great time.

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We have had an early spring here in the Northeast – perhaps an understatement – last Thursday the temperature was nearly 86 degrees.

I am on a fair pace when it comes to miles logged on the bike. Could be better, sure could be worse. I always loved the cartoons in velonews – where the old fred is wearing the shirt that reads “Old Guys who get fat in Winter..” Got to get me one of them.

Anyway, I digress.

Today was a bit cooler than some of the crazy early summer in winter weather we have had. Temperatures were around 50 and the wind was up – 12-15 from the west with gusts to 23 but the sun was out – and so were we.

Sally and I took a quick spin around Greely-Tuttle where we worked on dialing in her new shoes and cleats. A move from SPD to Keo’s on a nice pair of Sidi’s. It was a good ride. I came home from that and did a little wrench turning on the Professional – And set out for the first ride.

This is my third Merckx. I have the carbon, the MX Leader and now the Professional.

I have been building it up with mostly period components. I like the period that was the transition between old and new school. Dura Ace 7400 is the primary theme here – But the shifters are still on the down-tube and only the rear is indexed. The brakes are straight up, but the cables are areo routed on the bars – oh and the pedals are clip-less

Some of the parts were from the big parts bin in the basement. The crank, I got from Ebay. It is 180MM and has some unique chainring sizing going on.

The frame was also from Ebay – and is gorgeous. No dents, but it is a repaint. And, if you have to have a repaint on such a classic the only way to go would be Spectrum and Tom Kellogg. Wow. What a great job. This thing is beautiful.

So, I need to replace the stem still and the wheels are not exactly period – but the fit is great
It’s a pro bike.
Pro enough I guess.
Eddy rode the model to wins in the Tour De France, the Giro and the World championships. Even though it is almost five pound more than the 1XM carbon that is my primary ride, it feels lighter. The steering is tight. Real tight. The angles are steep and it is a quick and nimble steed.

It was a great first ride out with no surprises. The big problem was me trying to shift with the brakes – takes a while to forget that habit. It felt awkward reaching down and stupid trying to bend the brake to my will… The gearing was funky – A 54 / 50 up front? What were they thinking? But, having a 54×12 is …. something else on the descent.

I love this bike. I think I’ll keep it.

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